Each of the main characters’ actions reveal ideas crucial to the play.
Stanley’s actions (playing poker, drinking, having sex with Stella, raping Blanche) are fueled by his primal desires (compete with men, dominate women). Because Williams presents us with a society created and dominated by men, Stanley’s male desires can be fully expressed without inhibition or fear of any negative consequences. Stanley is free to satisfy all of his desires by taking direct action, completely unopposed by society.
Stella is also driven by desire, and she too reveals this through her actions. She stays with Stanley despite his physical abuse because she can derive sexual and emotional pleasure only from being with him. Of course she does not like being beaten but Stella’s actions make her priorities clear: she will sacrifice her independence if it is necessary in order to satisfy her desires. The idea illustrated here is that while social rules do not completely prohibit women from pursuing pleasure, they do restrict the ways in which women can do so, essentially demanding that they submit to male control of their lives. As opposed to men, who are largely free to do as they please, women must carefully balance their actions to get what they want without stepping outside their social boundaries.
Blanche is the author’s example of a woman who refuses to accept the social limitations placed on women. Through her actions, (kissing the paperboy, drinking, flirting with Mitch) Blanche seeks to satisfy her desires in the same way that the men do. But society automatically condemns her because according to its rules, women should not have that same freedom. Throughout the play, as characters learn about Blanche’s "scandalizing" past and present, they categorize her as an outsider, someone who breaks the rules of society and is therefore inferior. Both Mitch and Stanley attempt to force themselves on her because they desire her, but also because they disapprove of her openly expressed sexual desires.
Analyzing the outcome of the play for each character: Stanley satisfies his desires at no personal cost, successfully dominating his male friends and wife and ejecting the troublemaker Blanche from his house. Stella, by staying with Stanley and ignoring Blanche’s accusation of rape, chooses desire (sex and love) at the expense of submitting to Stanley’s power and losing her sister to an asylum. Blanche, as the only character who defied society’s rules with her actions, is raped and sent to a mental institution. Her pathetic end demonstrates the futility of rebellion against acceptable social behavior.
The action and outcome of the play, then, suggest that both women and men are fundamentally driven by desire. However, in a male-dominated society men are free to seek gratification, while women must accept the constraints imposed on their desires or be crushed by unbearable consequences.